The tire-to-road interaction is the dominating factor in generating, or changing, the motion of a wheeled vehicle, and the knowledge of variables related to the tire-to-road interaction is essential for many active safety systems in modern vehicles. Parameters related to the road friction are employed in many modern vehicles. For example, anti-lock braking systems (ABS), electronic stability control systems (ECS), and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), all make extensible use of parameters related to the tire-to-road interaction, in order to provide advanced safety mechanisms.
An important parameter when determining the tire-to-road interaction is the friction coefficient. Knowledge of the friction coefficient can be used as a supervisory component to the driver, but it can also be utilized in, for example, ABS, ESC, and ADAS. Friction coefficient can be used directly in vehicle control systems, such as ADAS; can be used as a supervisory component to a driver, e.g., to alert the driver of abrupt changes in the road surface; can be used to classify the road surface on which the car is traveling.
Another parameter of the state of the stiffness of the tires is an initial slope of the force-slip curve. The tire stiffness is in general different in the forward and lateral direction, so there are in general two individual force-slip curves per wheel, possibly depending on each other. The tire stiffness can be used directly in vehicle control systems, such as ADAS; can be used as a supervisory component to a driver, e.g., to alert the driver of abrupt changes in the road surface; can be used to classify the road surface on which the car is traveling; and/or it can be used to determine the friction coefficient.
Thus, it is desirable to obtain knowledge about the friction and/or other parameters that can help determining the friction while driving. For example, one parameter relating to the forces generated by the tire-to-road contact is the slip. In a longitudinal case, i.e., in the wheel's forward direction, the slip is defined in terms of the difference of the longitudinal velocity and the rotational speed of the wheel normalized by either the rotational speed of the wheel or the longitudinal velocity, whichever one is greater, i.e., whether the wheel is accelerating or braking. In a lateral case, i.e., in the wheel's lateral direction, the slip is defined in terms of a ratio between the wheel's lateral and longitudinal velocity components.
However, the parameters related to the tire-road interaction, such as the peak friction coefficient, tire stiffness, and slip, is generally difficult to measure or sense directly during driving; hence, it is usually determined by using indirect friction determination methods, in combination with one or more sensors.
A number of methods aim to estimate the parameters of the tires using various optimization techniques. For example, the method described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,065,067 uses bins of collected data to approximate a nonlinear function and minimizing error of friction and tire stiffness using nonlinear optimization. However, the nonlinear optimization is known to be prone to lack of convergence or convergence in a local optimum.
In addition, all methods that aim to determine parameters of the tires during runtime are dependent on a good initial guess. Methods for calibrating the parameters of the tires are often based on high-precision sensor setups or test rigs. However, high-precision sensors are costly and test rigs are only an approximation of the real world, so that calibration of a particular tire will only be true for that particular test rig.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and a method for calibrating parameters of tires of vehicle using sensors available in production vehicles.